Smorgon family
When pressure from the White Army forced Norman and Isak to close, the four brothers opened a small flour mill.
[3] Due to the continuing violence and anti-Semitism of the Russian Civil War, the Smorgon family then moved to Mariupol.
[3] Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924 and the rise of Joseph Stalin prompted Norman to immigrate to Australia, following his relatives Ruvin and Bertha.
[3] In 1925, Norman divorced Tzippa and married the family’s governess, Vera Naumovna Feldman,[1] so that she could obtain a travel permit too.
The facility housed a slaughterhouse, cannery, freezers, boilers and boning rooms which allowed the Smorgons to streamline their business operations.
During the 1970s, Smorgon Consolidated Industries, the conglomerate family business formed in 1958, bought three abattoirs in Inverell, Mareeba and Perth.
[3] In the early 1960s, the introduction of the disease myxomatosis by the Australian Government to cull rabbit overpopulation, led to decreased supply for the Smorgons.
In 1967, the Smorgons exited the fruit cannery business due to cheap South African products lowering the cost of goods in the UK.
[16] To compete with APM, the Smorgons decided to start producing boxes as part of a vertical integration of their paper business.
[3] The family got into a legal dispute with APM as both businesses sought to purchase shares in the public packaging company, Fibre Containers Ltd.
In 1984, Smorgon Consolidated Industries won the rights to supply 64% of Fibre Containers' paper, making the purchase of the company by APM less desirable.
The Smorgons purchased the company shares, having spent $53 million to complete this vertical integration of their paper business.
[3] From 1988 to 1989 APM (known as Amcor from 1986) drastically lowered box prices and raised charges for feedstock paper to capture more of the market.
[3][22] For 12 years, Victor and Loti Smorgon spent 6 months in the United States[3] to head this operation where they invested in more than 25 properties.
[3] In 1989, Smorgon Consolidated Industries sold its corrugated-box plants to Amcor and the Pratt Group and its Humes plastics business to James Hardie.
[16] Victor Smorgon partnered with David Holckner and began researching this new manufacturing method by visiting steel mills in the US.
[3] The Smorgons offered lower prices, distributed directly to customers and adapted their production schedules to suit their client’s needs.
They sold off the company’s building products operations and produced steel under the names of ARC and Australian Tube Mills.
[3][22] In 1998, the company bought out Australian National Industries[3] for its steel operations and in 2000 they purchased NSW’s leading scrap metal recycler, Metalcorp.
At the time of the breakup, Smorgon Consolidated Industries employed over 400 people,[3] operated companies in steel, meat, plastic containers, paper mills and recycling[22] and was worth $1.5 billion.
No family member could purchase the company assets for sale with the exception of Victor Smorgon who retained a small plastic recycling plant.
[3] Eric Smorgon founded the Escor Group which originally specialised in cosmetics but has since invested in multiple industries.
Through these, the Smorgons provide funding to aid chronic illness, homelessness, refugees, child abuse and medical research.
[31] The Smorgon family has a wing named after them in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.
They are life trustees at the Mount Scopus Memorial College and donate $30 000 annually to the Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research.
